


Impossible Dreams

by Penguin_Lord



Category: Atlantis: The Lost Empire (2001), Stargate SG-1
Genre: Crack, Gen, Headcanon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-08
Updated: 2014-06-08
Packaged: 2018-02-03 20:44:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,572
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1756613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Penguin_Lord/pseuds/Penguin_Lord
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Milo Thatch. Daniel Jackson. Two similar lives. Two similar dreams. What if one impacted the other?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is not to be taken seriously in any way, shape or form. This is purely my headcanon after realizing how similar Milo and Daniel are. The second Atlantis movie does not exist in this 'verse, just so you know.

Daniel Jackson was excited. Daniel Jackson, college undergrad, was very excited. Today, after many months full of applications, resumes, and references, was about to start his first internship. At the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. Right now he was miles above his lowly beginnings of being bounced around foster homes after his parents died. Hopefully this would be day one in his new exhilarating future in the world of archaeology.

But first he had to check in. He was ten minutes early already, but it was better to be early then late.

Nervously, he approached the desk clerk at the American History Museum and tried to catch her attention, “Hi, I’m Daniel Jackson. I’m supposed to sign in here for my internship.”

The clerk looked up at him, clearly scrutinizing his worn oxfords, off blue dress shirt, and taped up glasses. Then she returned to her appointment book.

“Ah yes. Jackson, Daniel. Wait a moment while I summon Dr. Sayer. He’s the intern coordinator here and he’ll be able to explain the job in further detail.”

Daniel turned away to inspect the surroundings while she picked up the phone, dialed a number, and spoke rapidly to the person on the other end.

He was in the middle of reading a plaque detailing the story of the origin of the Star Spangled Banner (not that he didn’t know it already but he felt it gave him the air that he was doing something important and interesting) when a middle aged, balding, bespectacled man came up   
behind him.

“Mr. Jackson I presume?”

Daniel whirled around, pushing up his glasses nervously, before sticking out his hand.

“Yes sir. Daniel Jackson. It’s a pleasure to meet you.”

The man took Daniel’s hand, giving it a firm shake. “Good, good. I’m Dr. Joseph Sayer. I’m the one they put in charge of all the interns here. Well, come along. I’ll give you a tour first then show you to your station.”

They went through halls and halls of old cars, cooking utensils, First Lady’s gowns, and even a Southern Belle dress made out of a window curtain and rod. Daniel was getting more and more excited, just being surrounded by all the history. After the tour, Dr. Sayer took him through a nondescript grey door hidden away in a back alcove on the first floor. Down and down they went, through subterranean passage unknown. Or at least that’s what Daniel likened it too. 

They ended up in a good sized room, full of pipes, odds-and-ends, a table, a chalkboard and boxes. A vast quantity of boxes actually. It made Daniel’s head spin just to look at them.

“This is where we keep records from other sources, various museums around the world and such. I’m afraid that nobody has ever really taken the time to organize it. So, that’s what you’ll be doing. There are a couple filing cabinets in the back corner, just put everything in there once you’re done. Oh, and watch out. The boiler is somewhat of a temperamental mistress. Well, good luck!”

Dr. Sayer made a hasty exit, shutting the door loudly behind him.

Daniel took a moment to gaze around the room. This would take him months! When he applied for this internship, dreams of finding information to support his theory about the Pyramids had been the first thing he thought of. But this… This was just useless information. One box was labeled ‘Weather Maps’. Another label was written in Norwegian and proclaimed what Daniel thought to read ‘Horticulture’. Great. None of this had absolutely anything to do with pyramids. 

Worse, none of it even looked remotely interesting either. Now he was stuck in the boiler room   
for an entire summer. Just perfect.

\----------

Weeks went by, filled to the brim with paper cuts, paper clips and just plain paper. Daniel was able to average about a box a day, but it seemed whenever he had made significant headway, more boxes just keep appearing out of nowhere. It was now halfway through July, one of the hottest months in the capital city and Daniel was quite thankful he was in the basement. His dingy apartment had neither air conditioning nor a useable fan so he had been forced to balance ice packs on his head to try to combat the heat. Not the most successful of ventures, naturally, thus he was glad that he spent the hottest parts of the day buried in a thankfully somewhat cool room. 

Something about this whole setup was bugging him however. The boiler room. It appeared to have been an office sometime in the past as well. Maps that pulled down from the ceiling detailed the location of something and there were even fake people, made from metal and wood scraps. Their silhouettes looked quite accurate. Creepy.

The answer to this mystery came sometime on the afternoon of July 23rd. Daniel had just finished sorting through one box of paper and was about to move on to the next when a flash of color sparked his interest. A large, handmade book was wedged under one of the table legs to keep the whole table from wobbling. Daniel hadn’t noticed before because of the amount of boxes but now, curious, he picked it up. The table immediately tilted to one side but Daniel just couldn’t bring himself to care. 

He flipped open the front cover. Inside was written ‘Property of Milo Thatch’ in messy handwriting. It appeared to be a journal of a sorts. The first entry was dated November 29th, 1908. It detailed someone’s (Daniel could only assume it was Milo’s) days at the Library of Congress, trying to find information on The Lost City of Atlantis (capital letters were necessary, as Milo had plainly written in his journal). The journal went on to chronicle Milo’s quest for the Lost City of Atlantis (and his habitation of the boiler room, thus explaining the figurines). And then it stopped. The last entry read:

‘I’m trying for the last time to make Mr. Harcourt see reason. All my evidence, all my theories, they’re correct! I know they are. I’m finally going to get out of this dungeon.’

That was the last entry. Nothing more was ever written, not about how Milo’s meeting with Fenton Q. Harcourt went or if Milo ever found the Shepherd’s Journal. Reading that passage gave Daniel chills. Suddenly self-conscious that he was supposed to be sorting through old boxes, Daniel hurriedly stuffed Milo’s journal into his messenger bag and went back to sorting.

He tried to put the journal out his mind when he went home for the night. Instead the curiosity left him unsated. His fingers were itching to caress the worn leather cover and faded yellow pages. His nose could smell the phantom scent that was indicative of old books. The next day he went straight to the shelf where he had placed Milo’s journal, just to make sure it was still there.

After a week of tense indecision, Daniel bowed to his curious nature.

After work on the 30th of July, Daniel paid a visit to the Library of Congress. He sorted through what felt like hundreds of old newspapers before finding the relevant article from May 12, 1914.

‘ _ **Hundreds die in failed Atlantis expedition!**_

_Earlier this week six survivors of an apparent shipwreck were rescued off the coast of Newfoundland. They claimed to be the last surviving members of an expedition to find Atlantis._

_Last March, Mr. Preston Whitmore financed an expedition, led by Lyle T. Rourke to find this legendary city. This expedition set out with 276 crew members. Only six survivors were rescued: Joshua Sweet, Vincenzo Santorini, Audrey Ramirez, Wilhelmina Packard, Jebidiah Farnsworth, and Gaëtan Molièr. It is reported that their submarine malfunctioned due to unforeseen underwater currents. They were the only ones to make it to escape pods._

_For a list of the dead go to C4._ ’

Daniel anxiously flipped the necessary pages and scanned the morbid list. His heart clenched when he got to the T’s and found ‘Thatch, Milo’ listed as well. Defeated, he returned the newspapers to their proper home, and left the library.

For the next couple days he walked around as if in a fog. The unfortunate fate Milo received just didn’t seem right. Maybe it was Daniel’s own seemingly pointless quest but he had wanted so badly for Milo to find Atlantis. It seemed illogical that something that had happened more than half a century ago should affect him so. But he wanted to give Milo’s memory some sort of closure. So next week Milo returned to the Library of Congress and this time sought out Milo Thatch’s   
obituary.

More parallels. Milo Thatch was an orphan, taken in by his grandfather after his parents had died. His grandfather, Thaddeus Thatch, had died before his grandson, but the obituary listed a Mr. Preston Whitmore as being a close friend of the family’s. Mr. Whitmore again. Mr. Preston Whitmore, Daniel found out, was deceased (no surprise there) but had a grandson still living at the same family estate.

On Daniel’s next free Saturday he ventured to the Whitmore Family Estate, which was located a little ways outside the district. It was a sprawling estate with a house out of a gothic novel. Daniel was a little surprised he was even offered entry, what with his sudden and probably unexpected appearance. He was shown into a grand sitting room with one wall being a huge fish tank. The wall opposite the fish tank housed a crackling hearth in an ornate fireplace. The walls above the fireplace were crowded with portraits, antique swords, pottery, model ships, and any other manner of reliquary one could think of . Daniel was admiring a circa 16th century sabre when a cough from behind him caused him to turn around.

A white haired man of about 70, full of life and good humor, had entered the room. He wore a loose white cotton suit and a blue crystal held by a leather strap hung from his neck. “Spanish dueling sabre from the 1570’s, that one.”

Daniel was flummoxed for a second then jumped to respond. “Ah yes, a Jean Cenvouz sabre if I’m not mistaken.”

“Quite right, my boy. Quite right. But I’m certain you didn’t come to talk to me about my sabre collection. Preston Whitmore III, at your service.”

“Daniel Jackson.” They shook hands and Mr. Whitmore motioned to sit a couple of comfortable looking chairs.

“So, Mr. Jackson, my secretary said that you found something connected to my grandfather,” Mr. Whitmore said, hands clasped in front of him.

“Yes I did. I… well I ah… What do you know about your grandfather’s friend Milo Thatch?”

“Milo,” here Mr. Whitmore seemed truly shocked. “No one has asked about Milo for quite some time. My grandfather used to talk about him all the time. Milo was a brilliant man. He could talk in more languages than most people knew existed but he didn’t have a lick of sense. Naïve that one, but with a wonderful heart is what my grandfather said.”

Mr. Whitmore seemed to age fifty years in the blink of an eye. He looked world worn and weary, as though he had personally known the Milo that had perished all those years ago and not his grandfather.

“Why do you ask?” Mr. Whitmore asked.

“Well, sir, I’m interning at the Smithsonian Institution and I found this,” Daniel pulled out Milo’s journal and handed it to Mr. Whitmore.

The older man opened the front cover and gasped, tears coming to his eyes. “Oh Milo!”  
“It starts from when Milo was about 17 and runs until Milo tired to tell Fenton Q. Harcourt about discovering the location of the Shepherd’s Journal. I imagine he didn’t take it before he left on the Atlantis expedition so that’s why it still exists. If he’d taken it with him it’d probably be at the bottom of the ocean now. I thought that it should go to someone he meant a lot to.” Daniel explained gently.

Mr. Whitmore seemed to only be half listening. Most of his attention was focused on the journal. He was loving flipping each page and reading it. Sometimes he’d chuckle or smile, as though imagining Milo’s voice saying all that he had written.

Daniel waited in respectful silence until Mr. Whitmore had finished his cursory inspection of the journal. Mr. Whitmore turned back to Daniel with tears in his eyes, “Thank you Mr. Jackson. You have no idea what this means to me.”

“I’m just glad I could find the journal its rightful home,” Daniel smiled bashfully. “I should probably get going now, I just wanted to give you the journal.”

“Thank you again, Mr. Jackson.”

Mr. Whitmore got up to walk Daniel out.

“Oh there is one thing I had a question about,” Daniel mentioned at the front door as he turned to leave.

“Ask and I shall try to answer to the best of my abilities,” Mr. Whitmore promised.

“About Milo… Are you sure that he died?” Daniel wanted to know. “It’s just that there were no reports of any bodies ever being recovered. Isn’t it possible that he could have survived?”

A curious mood came over Mr. Whitmore. “Why do you ask?”

“It’s just… I’m working on something now, and it’s so crazy it’s almost too impossible to be true. I just wanted to know that Milo’s own impossibility didn’t get him killed, that he didn’t die for nothing,” Daniel admitted. He saw too many parallels in Milo’s life with his own to not see this as an omen for his own future.

Mr. Whitmore stared pensively at Daniel for what seemed like forever. Daniel could tell he was being carefully measured and judged. Apparently he was found worthy because Mr. Whitmore went over to a painting, took it off its hook and unlocked the safe that was hidden behind. 

Carefully he retrieved a small photograph stored inside and showed it to Daniel.

It was an old black and white photo of a man and a woman. The man was skinny, tall, and wore glasses. He was decked out in what appeared to be tribal garb and paint of a native tribe. The woman probably belonged to that native tribe because she was darker, stunningly beautiful and looked a lot more comfortable in her clothes. They were staring lovingly into each other’s eyes.

“Is this?” Daniel asked, his voice failing him.

“Yes. Milo Thatch and his wife, Kida. He didn’t find exactly what he set out to, but Milo found something worthwhile just the same.”

“Good. I’m glad,” Daniel pronounced.


	2. Epilogue

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Just a short epilogue.

Daniel didn’t think about his rather bizarre summer at the Smithsonian again until much, much later. By that point in time Daniel had already proven his impossibility to be not only possible but also the truth. On the night after Catherine Langford introduced him to the Stargate Project Daniel uncorked a bottle of wine. He poured out two glasses and then set them down next to the bottle. With a sad smile, Daniel picked up one glass and saluted an absent Milo with a toast.

“This one’s for you Milo,” Daniel said, then downed his whole glass.

The other glass stood untouched, saved for a man who had probably long since died, but whose legacy lived to inspire a new generation of people striving towards impossible dreams.

**Author's Note:**

> I'm debating about writing more for this 'verse. I am convinced that those blue crystals make people immortal - meaning Vince and Audrey and Sweets would still be alive.


End file.
